The Western Tradition series:

About…
“The Western Tradition”
by Eugen Weber

Robert's Supertruth Book List of the BIG Picture

“ It has always been a problem for a society faced by a serious challenge to decide just what measures it can take and how far it can go in opposing and meeting that challenge. If you argue that you can only preserve your way of life by adopting certain means which negate that way of life—that you can only preserve democracy or free speech by limiting them, for example; or preserve a high standard of living by taxing and restricting it; or preserve liberty by regimentation; or moral order by inquisition—then you run the risk of sacrificing exactly the things you say you are fighting for. You run the risk of sacrificing precisely those things that you use to justify the sacrifices in the first place, and you run the risk of becoming so like your enemy that the differences matter very little.”